The Heart's Garden
by sutaretagaisce
Summary: Three seeds Kraehe held and helped in planting within Mytho's heart, for good or ill.


Once there was a girl who danced so beautifully it was almost as if she could fly. This was all she could do, however, for she knew nothing of humankind except the desires of the heart: to be loved and to be protected. Beyond that she was like a beast in all her ways. This was because her father was a monster raven and sorely vexed that his only daughter was a human, twisted and ugly in his eyes. Her dance was the only thing that pleased him even a little.

"Oh my disfigured, pitiful daughter," he told the girl, whose name was Kraehe. It was the closest her father could give her to a raven's name because when she tried to caw like ravens do it only came out as a strangled cry. "Oh Kraehe, you've no wings to escape the ground. All you can do is flutter uselessly and wait for someone's love to heal you."

"If I am loved I will be whole then, Father?"

"Yes," said the raven. "But who could love something as twisted as you? Besides me there is only the prince who could look upon you with something other than disgust. His heart is a garden that blooms for all. You can see his work in the vines that bind me here beneath the ground and in the dark."

"And he will love me?"

"Yes, he will love you. Though his heart is gone, something like he was yet remains. It is a fertile soil. Even someone like you, who lives without sun, can reach it yet. Go to the prince and lay beside him to keep him warm. If you are patient and true, my daughter, within his chest something like love will bloom for you. Pluck it and bring it to me, then you will have your wings and a prince to marry."

"I will, Father," said Kraehe and journeyed into the human world.

Once there she met the prince, and gave him her human name to call her by. She did this because she knew that humans feared ravens, and above all else did not want him to hate her, beast though she was. As her father bade, she stayed by the prince's side and lay with him at nights, whispering her love for him and waiting for his answer.

"My prince, tell me you love me. What makes you love me?"

And the prince would respond, "Of nothing I love you."

Years and years passed. Still nothing sprouted from within the prince's chest, not even a single heartbeat. No matter how much Kraehe loved him it did not change. And, indeed, she loved him more with each passing night, for she loved the smell and shape of him. She loved the way he would reciprocate the warmth she gave him though he had no warmth of his own. Yet every time she bade him the same request:

"My prince, tell me you love me."

Every night was the same answer.

"Of nothing I love you."

Kraehe did not mind. Even if the prince was hollowed and barren of feeling, he was still hers because nothing else would grow there. She knew every part of him, knew what he would say when she asked him, knew he would take her hand when she asked to dance. So she forgot what it was like to be a disfigured creature, lying beside a creature broken in other ways. For her, this was happiness.

But it was not meant to last. One day a princess stole into the prince's life and began planting the seeds of his heart in the hopes it would grow again. Like Kraehe, her dance was beautiful. Yet she could understand more than what a heart wants for itself, but also what it wants for others. And by her care the hollow part prince's chest began to sprout with feeling.

The prince was so enchanted by the princess that he set off wandering during the days, calling for her to return to him. And every time she did she brought another shard of his broken heart to plant in his breast and hold him with her gentle hands.

To Kraehe, lying awake listening to the sound of his breathing in the night, she felt as if she would lose him to a dark wood or a wall of thorns would grow between them. In her fear she remembered she was the daughter of a monster and a beast herself, so Kraehe set out against the young princess. Although she could not make the prince's heart bloom for herself, she could overpower the girl and steal the heart shards, as a raven steals seeds from a garden.

The first one she snatched from the princess' hand with a gust of wind borne of her dance. But she could do nothing with the shard of curiosity once she had it. She could not eat it, it would not grow for her, and when it asked her where it would be scattered she locked it away. But all things have a rightful place and the princess called it back to the prince, where it began to take root in him.

Kraehe despaired and clung all the more desperately to him. Praying this night would be the one where her warmth was enough to let something of him blossom for her. When he finally appeared she trembled before him and felt her heart would burst.

"My prince, where have you been?" Kraehe cried and, afraid of losing him, commanded him, "Tell me you love me."

"Of curiosity I sought you," was all the prince said and held out his hand.

They were not the words she was used to hearing. He spoke them in a different voice. His fingertips trembled to reach her own shivering form. So afraid was she that Kraehe slapped his hand away and made him sleep in silence until the morning came, when she had to return him to the world.

Again, Kraehe tried to stop the princess from returning another shard and changing the beautiful, barren prince she knew into something else. When Kraehe's winds came to strike they swept up the shard of devotion and bound it in a coffin of iron feathers. But all things have a rightful place and the princess knew it was not in the coffin but in the prince's half-living breast so she called it back to take root in him.

Kraehe cursed herself for being unable to stop the princess, and more for being unable to make the feelings grow and turn to her whims. So when she came to him that night she was even more afraid and her voice was breaking as she begged him:

"My prince, tell me you love me. Me and only me..."

But the prince did not answer her as she liked. He merely called to her:

"Of curiosity I sought you.

Of devotion I found you."

Again the prince held out his hand, and this time he stared at her with a gentle expression. But Kraehe could not bear the image and threw him down to the ground and forced his eyes close. There she clung to him in his sleep, fervently waiting for something like her father described to appear. But nothing came and she had to leave him when the sun rose.

Knowing she could do nothing to stop the prince from having his heart returned to him, Kraehe turned to her father for advice. And he replied: "My daughter, the next piece you scavenge bathe in my blood. The divine nourishment it gave you will dye his garden the color of your eyes and he will not look to the princess again."

So Kraehe stole the shard of love, which the prince intended to give to the princess as a token of his gratitude. As her father instructed her, she soaked it in blood until the seed swelled crimson.

"With this seed," she said to herself, "my prince's love will bloom for me at last. A flower with petals as red as my eyes and a center as black as the night."

The princess, not knowing what Kraehe had done, came again to call the feeling of love back to the rightful place it belonged. But unlike the seeds she had sewn before, the bloodied shard rooted in prince's chest, burying the other feelings underneath. And the prince screamed in pain for it was if a million thorns erupted within him.

The princess, afraid she had hurt him, fled. And Kraehe thought at last she would have all that she ever dreamt of as she pulled the prince's pale form to her and stroked his hair.

"Now that I have done as my father wished you will be mine. It was my hands that tilled you, my tears that watered you, my body that warmed you! Oh heart, bloom! Bloom and tell me you love me!" Kraehe cried.

The prince's hand did not rise except to clutch at his bleeding chest. His eyes did not soften into a gentle expression for they were shut tight in agony. Yet he answered her in a hollow voice:

"Of curiosity I sought you.

Of devotion I found you.

Of love I cannot know

It's bathed in blood and will not grow..."


End file.
